The state-run radio and television have been repeatedly broadcasting Khamenei's brazen order to the security forces to resort to savage suppression, while also re-playing Khatami's interview last night, in which he vowed to clamp down on the antigovernment protests in Tehran.
Khamenei referred to Khatami's open complicity in the bloody crackdown on demonstrators when he said: "It has been emphasized to the authorities in the government and especially those in charge of public order and security to put down the corrupt elements waging war on God and to deal with them forcefully."
Khamenei emphasized that "for the past two days, a collection of thugs, aided and abetted by certain bankrupt political groups, ... have been creating mischief, destroying property, spreading terror and shouting throughout Tehran." He called on the repressive forces to "suffocate the mercenary and paid agents of the enemy."
Iranian Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi commented: "Where else in the world do you see such brazen public calls issued by a regime's leaders and broadcast by the state media to suppress and terrorize savagely a people whose only crime is to demand freedom and democracy? With their successive, widespread demonstrations the Iranian people have told the world that Khamenei and Khatami are cut from the same cloth. The ruling mullahs would do well to learn from the Shah's experience: suppression and bloodshed will not save their faltering regime from being overthrown."
Mr. Rajavi commended those governments that have condemned the mullahs' brutal suppression of the Iranian people's demonstrations and urged world leaders not to remain silent on the clerical regime's barbarity and condemn this suppressive regime. He also called on all international authorities and human rights organizations to do whatever in their power to stop the mass killing of protesters and students in demonstrations throughout Iran.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 14, 1999
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